Roughly 2,400 years ago “Lysistrata” opened in Athens. Aristophanes’ play was about how the beauty, Lysistrata, convinced Greece’s women to deny their men love-making until the region’s warring factions started making peace.
And, seeing how Parenthesis is the Greek god of afterthought, that got me to thinking — about the TV money-addicted NCAA and the NFL.
Neither moneyed monster seems particularly willing or able to dam or even patch the rush of criminals that flows directly from our colleges to the pros. In the course of seven days, beginning Nov. 7, three NFLers — all college men — were either indicted or sentenced for felony gun or drug charges.
Jets’ RB Mike Goodson, 26 and a full scholarship recruit to Texas A&M, formally was charged for weapons, ammo (hollow-point bullets) and drug possession, and 49ers’ LB and frequent cop-attractor Aldon Smith, 24, a full scholarship player at Missouri, was charged with three felony counts for possession of assault firearms.
Sam Hurd, Northern Illinois University and 28-year-old NFL WR — last stop with the Bears — was sentenced to 15 years for drug trafficking. His prison sentence was read just hours before NIU played a Wednesday night game for and on ESPN.
In other words, football business as usual.
But what if the flow of business was reversed? What if, as in Lysistrata, enough givers to the colleges that now regularly pump out criminals, withheld, as a matter of disgust and protest, their giving — big, small and in-between?
What if angry alums determined that they would rather loudly no longer recommend their university to high school students — not until it cleans up its act?
What if the yahoos with the checkbooks — those pathetic adults whose egos are stoked and self-worth predicated on outcomes of games played by 20-year-olds and the whatever-it-takes recruitment of 18-year-olds — suddenly had some financial competition?
What if the college presidents — essentially fund-raisers — had to choose between compromised money and clean money, all money being equal?
“Dear Mr. President: With every arrest of a full scholarship football player, I’m going to donate $1,000 less. Three arrests and I’m out. And I’m going to spread the word.”
What if money were no longer used to fund a racketeering operation — to establish, maintain and strengthen the school as a front for football and basketball teams — and were instead used to ensure fraud-free student-athletics?
Pipe dream, I know. Lysistrata, after all, has been a classified “a comedy.”
‘Appropriate’ death threats quite uncommon
Quotes of the Week: Woody Johnson characterized vulgar, twisted — but now-common — tweets aimed at ex-Jet Darelle Revis, including death threats, as “inappropriate.”
Yep, another sign of the times: People don’t even know how to make an appropriate death threat anymore.
Joseph Lombardo, an investment firm founder, Thursday in Manhattan pleaded guilty to defrauding the hideously mismanaged NBA Players Association out of $3 million. Lombardo even used a rubber stamp to fake the name of an attorney — who had died.
Lombardo’s attorney, Michael Koenig, explained, “Joe made a series of bad decisions.”
Like stealing? And then stealing some more? Guess so.
To me, a “series of bad decisions” is when you keep inserting quarters into a busted parking meter.
Reader Mike Whelan, Greenlawn, N.Y., on the Mike Francesa-Keith Olbermann feud: “It’s like Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah or Mothra … and we just gotta stay out of the way.”
Incidentally, the Colts, sagely touted by Francesa to be no better than a .500 team, had better get started. As of Thursday night, they’re 7-3.
Thursdays have become another go-to day for the growing legions who now rely on Francesa’s “Ultimate Insider” picks to go the other way. Two Thursdays ago he went out of his way to unilaterally claim undefeated Oregon, an 11-point favorite, would crush Stanford by at least “three TDs” that night.
You know the rest. Oregon not only didn’t cover, it lost the game and WFAN lost the tape.
And just to further enrich his “followers,” that day Francesa gifted them another: Oklahoma to “keep it close” against Baylor. That night, Baylor, 41, OU 12.
Few kids on Kidd’ s roster
Nobody asked me, but … Jason Kidd, who liked to play full-court basketball, couldn’t have made his coaching debut with a more incongruous bunch than these Nets, a roster dominated by older players of accomplishment who couldn’t change their games or gears even if they decided to.
Progress: 100 years ago they built ballparks that lasted 90-100 years. Today? If you can get 30, 35 years out of one, not bad. The Braves can’t stay in Turner Field, any longer. The place, after all, is 17 years old — and there are taxpayers (suckers) up the road who will build them another new one!
Just like all games now end in “walk-offs,” all episodes of incivility are now classified as “bullying.” A lot of what’s called bullying is worse than bullying and a lot is no worse than acting like a wise guy.
Judging from Charles Barkley’s appearance in a new, unrelated commercial, his Weight Watchers gig, which he bragged was easy money, is kaput. Guess it was as easy as pie!
Follow the money: Duke-Kansas on/for ESPN tipped at 9:35 p.m., CST (10:35 here) Tuesday in Chicago. Funny how Bobby Knight used to gripe about 9 p.m. starts for ESPN, how they disrupted academic and travel schedules. Noble stance. Now that he’s with ESPN? Silence.
Ya think one of these NFL and NCAA coaches, GMs and ADs would have told their players, especially seeing how it’s Veterans Day week, to remove their helmets and their wave/skull caps during the national anthem.
ESPN, which would exploit a cholera outbreak for self-promotion, now inserts the expert NFL draft guesswork of Mel Kiper and Todd McShay in large graphics during college telecasts.
Gov. Cuomo: The only way N.Y. State can ensure profits from more legalized gambling is if it opens its own pawn shops.
Why is any football timeout — even if called to avert a calamity — that’s called before the last few minutes of either half now called “burning a timeout,” as if it’s wasteful?
Fountain of Youth: J.R. Smith might be the only 28-year-old susceptible to charges of juvenile delinquency.
Rather than take some days off, let’s call it a Bye Week. So, until Nov. 29, bye!